Glory Days
by firenze083
Summary: His infarction is the center of their universe. HW, HS, HCu, HCam


He wishes she could've seen him before the infarction.

It's not the leg thing, though it sort of actually is. She's already seen him on ketamine, skateboarding and running and sliding on the floor and vanishing while she's not looking.

Hey Cameron, he would say, race you to do the lumbar puncture.

And she would roll her eyes in her a long-suffering way, but she would run because he's already had a head start.

It would be impossible for her to fall in love with him then.

----

The rain is pouring in sheets, and she can hear the winds whistling even inside her dorm room. Cuddy sighs in frustration and lets herself fall face first to her bed. The door suddenly opens and she can think of only one person who would never knock before entering.

Stop staring at my ass, House, she says, voice muffled by her pillow.

It's ginormous. You should think about working out more often, He says.

Cuddy turns to look at him, leaning on the threshold. There's his smirk and his rumpled hair and his eyes the color of—of—skies after sex, is the only description she could always think of.

I want to go running. She pounds her pillow. I've been wanting to, since finals week, but I've had to study.

He seems to think for a moment and looks at the rain slamming against her windows.

Then go running, He tells her like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and walks away without another word.

She makes another noise of frustration.

----

She could only shoot him once.

He stops short and lowers his gun, looks down at the bright orange spot blossoming on his chest then at her, and the surprise in his eyes she can see in the dark from ten feet away where she is standing.

There is chaos after that, and she finds herself contending with the full force of him. She can't turn into a corner without finding herself shot by blue paint (the doctors' team color). She runs back or away or rallies the help of other middle-aged Harvard lawyers yelling and screaming as if they were in their frat houses all over again.

But no matter what she does or where she goes she sees him over the barrel of a giant paintball gun with that infuriating smug grin, blasting her. He ducks her counterattacks with a superhuman agility that she doesn't know doctors are capable of.

And after all that, when she thinks she nearly drowns in paint, the lights go on and the buzzer sounds. Doctors, win. Lawyers, zilch.

He finds her easily among the boisterous, laughing crowd after that; she is the only one dripping head to toe in blue. Though he can also recite a minute-by-minute recount, know this; she remembers this moment better. It is a landmark in history.

Walking to her and taking his own sweet time, gun slung over his shoulders like some overly smug GI in a warzone. There is only one orange splatter of paint in his shirt.

Wow, they really made a target out of you there, He tells her. I'm Greg, by the way, and I shot the hell out of you.

She pushes her paint-soaked bangs away and clasps his hand. Stacy. Shot you first.

----

Why can't we just play poker, like all the other people do on Thursdays? Wilson asks him.

Because poker's for wusses who can't get their asses out of their chairs, He says matter-of-factly. Come on, Jimmy. Play ball like a real man.

Wilson rolls his eyes. Fine, but my wife's going to be pissed at me for canceling dinner again. Why don't you ask Stacy?

Uh, lemme think—because she has a vagina? He offers him his best duh look.

Cuddy beats your sorry ass in tennis.

Yes, but she doesn't _only _have a vagina, if you get my drift. House gives him an exaggerated wink.

Wilson gives up and agrees.

House plays basketball the way he does everything else. He is manipulative and opportunistic and presses against him, hard against his back or too close to his chest or breathing down his ear so that Wilson's fingers sometimes slip and House steals the ball.

Once, when he is about to shoot, House tries to block him and (Accidentally? He wonders often) grazes his cock with the tips of his fingers through the jersey. The ball misses by a mile.

After the game (which he loses) House looms over Wilson without being taller than him with that smirk that he has the urge to wipe away in any manner possible.

You suck.

When House walks away, humming, Wilson is left with some feeling he would rather not dwell on.

Secretly (selfishly, cruelly), a part of him is relieved that House loses some of himself after the infarction. Cripples some of him that otherwise no one could contain; Wilson is certain that he would not be able to deal with something like that again.

----

This is the reason she remembers it better than him. Not clearer or more.

She remembers because when she sits beside his hospital bed she sees a dip in the sheets where his thigh muscle should be.

Because in the future, when she is having coffee with Mark or fucking Mark or almost falling asleep beside Mark, she can reach out and pluck that memory out of thin air and see him and hear him and feel him, all muscle and memory and _energy_ walking towards her _with a gun slung on his shoulders like some overly smug GI in a warzone._

_World enough, and time,_ She prays over and over in her head, waiting and hating for him to wake up.

He opens his eyes slowly and looks at her and the no place at his thigh and screams.

In her head, there's a buzzer, no more world and time. Glory days are over.

----

She doesn't know why she even brought an umbrella. In seconds, she is fully drenched, inside and out. She is standing at the quad, fully devoid of students except for one or two similarly wet people scurrying to be inside.

He, though, is running. He is running as if it's a sunny day in June and the sun is beating down his back instead of the harsh, heavy lashes of rain.

House! What the _hell_ are you doing? She yells to be heard through the din as he pauses enough to stand beside her. She ignores him as he leers at her breasts, which are probably as good as bare with the see through plastic that is her t-shirt.

He gives her a reckless grin, which is watered down by the rain. What the hell are _you _doing? You said you wanted to run! He yells back.

Yes! And there's a reason I didn't!

He rolls his eyes at her, and thunder roars in a distance. Oh, live a little, Cuddy, He says, and turns back to run.

He is soaking wet and all grace and godliness when he runs, smoothly and effortlessly. He has given up his shirt somewhere and she could see the drops of rain slide down his back, down his arms, the muscles of his thighs flexing and contracting to some unknown rhythm in his head.

Later, she is surprised when he still has the strength enough to strip her of all her wet clothes, lift her up as she wraps her legs around his waist, and fuck her against the bathroom wall.

Nowadays, there are times, bursts of moments, when she looks to him as if he could follow her up the stairs and is surprised when he can't.

----

Cameron, who is clueless of all this but infinitely curious, parallels the ketamine days (which are all she has) with the normal days (which are what everyone has in common).

Everyone she asks tells her that he is the same before and after, but they all have a way of looking at him that screams otherwise.

She glimpses _something_ during those short-lived days, (_What lives and dies with the muscle in his leg?) _but decides afterwards that she would rather not know; there are some things about Gregory House she could live without knowing.


End file.
